One of the five major stuck points people undergoing chronic pain management face is becoming a victim to their pain. People who get stuck in this stage start behaving like a victim and start getting treated like a victim by others. Many people in this stage are into blaming everyone else for their condition and using that as an excuse not to change. When they are in this stage they use a combination of two of the denial patterns—blaming and strategic hopelessness (AKA diagnosing myself as beyond help). A former patient of mine, Shelly, is a prime example of this stuck point.

When I first met Shelly she was hopeless, demoralized and felt like a victim. Shelly was a medical doctor who was eventually arrested for diverting medications from her hospital and put in the physician diversion program and was at high risk for having her license to practice medicine revoked. She started out self-medicating a back pain condition and it got away from her and she became addicted to the medication and began forging prescriptions and then stealing medications from the hospital where she worked.

She was also angry about being in diversion and it was always everybody else’s fault. When told she would be drug tested and could no longer take any psychoactive (mood altering) medications she became depressed and hopeless. In addition to the two denial patterns mentioned above she also used the one about comparison—“I can’t be an addict because I take prescription medication for my legitimate pain and I’m a doctor.

The reality is many doctors do become addicted to medications. There is a dangerous mistaken belief in the healthcare community that if you have real pain you will not become addicted. This might be true for most people but ten to fifteen percent of the people can experience medication abuse, pseudoaddiction, or addiction.

Fortunately for Shelly, she finally accepted that she had an addictive disorder, she did it to herself and that she now realized she could be victorious and successfully complete her diversion program and go back to the job she loved.

Before moving into victorious Shelly did hit the road block of feeling totally powerless. The paradox for her was she had to admit she was powerless over her addiction before she could move into recovery and become victorious.

Most people who get stuck in this victim stage are also suffering with their pain. To learn more about pain and suffering please check out my article Pain is Inevitable but Suppering is Optional when Living with a Chronic Pain Condition that you can download for free on our Article page.

If you’d like to receive training for helping people with chronic pain and coexisting disorders, including addiction, I’m very excited to announce we are once again presenting my Addiction-Free Pain Management® Certification Training in Sacramento on November 11-13, 2010 this time in our new office space in Sacramento CA. To learn more about this and my other upcoming trainings you can check out our Calendar page.

You can learn about the Addiction-Free Pain Management® System at our website www.addiction-free.com. If you are working with people undergoing chronic pain management and want to learn how to develop a plan for managing their chronic pain and coexisting psychological disorders; including depression, addiction and other coexisting psychological disorders effectively; please consider my book Managing Pain and Coexisting Disorders: Using the Addiction-Free Pain Management® System. To purchase this book please Click Here.

To read the latest issue of Chronic Pain Solutions Newsletter please click here. If you want to sign up for the newsletter, please click here and input your name and email address. You will then recieve an autoresponse email that you need to reply to in order to finalize enrollment.

Many people undergoing chronic pain management need to go through a grieving process before they get better. I believe that the last stage is not just acceptance, but rather re-integration or what I call thriving. When people get to this stage I remind them the journey is not yet over and if they stop at just acceptance that they will miss so much. It’s like climbing Mount Everest and getting to the last base camp and stopping when the summit is only one more day away.

On my personal journey thriving was also the last stage of my grieving process that I needed to work through. I had always thought acceptance was the last stage of the grieving process. I learned that the final step was reintegration. For me that means that I can honestly say that today my life is better than ever—true it’s different—but today I’m living a life with great purpose and meaning even though I am living—thriving—with chronic pain.

I’ll use my example of getting stuck in just acceptance and surviving. As I was going through the vocational rehabilitation process I got to the point where I could accept what had happened to me and decided to go on. Earlier I almost got permanently stuck in the hopeless and demoralized stage and at one point was even considering suicide as a viable option. That stuck point was much easier to get through than my staying mired down in surviving.

As I was going through the vocational rehabilitation process and going to school to become a counselor one of the requirements was to get into personal therapy. My therapist helped me work through the last stages of my grieving process for my lost level of functioning and quality of life.

One of my biggest breakthroughs was getting to the point where I could go and watch my former Karate Dojo mates compete in a major tournament. I went through a gamut of emotions and almost ran out several times but I did persevere and stay until the end. From that point on I quit looking back and focused on what I wanted my future to look like instead of focusing on suffering and what I didn’t like.

I have been fortunate to be a guide and coach for many other people on their journey to freedom from suffering and have seen most of them get to this thriving stage. Unfortunately, there were some who got stuck on the journey or just quit trying. Some of the ones who quit did come back to me or other helpers and eventually completed their journey and some died during the trek.  If you are willing to do the footwork, you can be one of the people who thrive and race to the finish line and then begin to enjoy the rest of your life.

For more on living life to the fullest while undergoing chronic pain management please check out my article Living Life to the Fullest as we Face Adversity that you can download for free on our Article page.

If you’d like to receive training for helping people with chronic pain and coexisting disorders, including addiction, I’m very excited to announce we are once again presenting my Addiction-Free Pain Management® Certification Training in Sacramento on November 11-13, 2010 this time in our new office space. To learn more about this and my other upcoming trainings you can check out our Calendar page.

You can learn more about the Addiction-Free Pain Management® System at our website www.addiction-free.com. If you or a loved one is undergoing chronic pain management, especially if you’re in recovery or believe you may have a medication or other mental health problem and you want to learn more effective chronic pain management tools, please go to our Publications page and check out my books; especially the Addiction-Free Pain Management® Recovery Guide: Managing Pain and Medication in Recovery. To purchase this book please Click Here.

To read the latest issue of Chronic Pain Solutions Newsletter please click here. If you want to sign up for the newsletter, please click here and input your name and email address. You will then recieve an autoresponse email that you need to reply to in order to finalize enrollment.

Given the biopsychosocial nature of chronic pain conditions it is imperative to utilize a multidisciplinary treatment plan for effective pain management.  Living with chronic pain is very difficult.  If a also have a coexisting addiction or other psychological disorders it becomes even harder.  People with chronic pain and coexisting disorders can become severely depressed and feel hopeless.  Their self-esteem is practically non-existent and many of them lose the support of their significant others. 

Healthcare providers often become confused and frustrated when their treatment interventions are ineffective.  Also, we must warn people living with chronic pain not to be fooled by health practitioners who claim to do pain management, yet only do one major thing for your pain, such as medication management, or chiropractic adjustments or acupuncture.  True multidisciplinary pain management involves interventions such as physical therapy, massage, medication management, counseling or therapy, biofeedback, occupational therapy, exercise physiology, an anesthesiologist or pharmacologist, and a case manager all at one site, at a minimum.  It may also involve some type of movement therapy such as Tai Chi, classes on spiritual wellness, yoga or meditation.

I believe a multidisciplinary team is crucial in order to address the specific biopsychosocial needs of people living with chronic pain.  In addition, the physical, psychological, and social implications of chronic pain and any coexisting disorders—including the impact on family systems—must also be adequately dealt with.

I believe it is essential to implement a collaborative three part approach such as the one I developed for the Addiction-Free Pain Management® System: (1) A medication management plan—in consultation with an addiction medicine specialist if abuse or addiction are an issue; (2) A cognitive-behavioral treatment plan—addressing pain versus suffering, treating family system issues and changing self-defeating behaviors; and (3) A nonpharmacological pain management plan—developing safer medication-free ways to manage pain.  Recovery and avoiding relapse is possible if patients are willing to do the footwork and utilize a collaborative multidisciplinary treatment team.

Using a multidisciplinary team is crucial in treating the synergistic problems people and their families’ face that have been severely impacted by chronic pain, especially when addiction, and other psychological disorders are present.  When these conditions coexist it creates a major challenge that must be addressed by utilizing a collaborative treatment approach. The inclusion of Addiction, Mental Health and Medical is vital to this process. 

When these coexisting conditions occur, the family problems increase synergistically.  Effective treatment can be challenging and confusing for counselors, therapists and other healthcare providers, but especially for patients and their families.  I believe it is important to utilize the strategic three-part approach outlined above that can improve treatment outcomes and give people living with chronic pain and their families new hope.

To learn more about developing an effective chronic pain management plan, especially when coexisting disorders are a factor, please check out my article Overcoming Obstacles for Effective Chronic Pain Management that you can download for free on our Article page.

If you’d like to receive training for helping people with chronic pain and coexisting disorders, including addiction, I’m very excited to announce we are once again presenting my Addiction-Free Pain Management® Certification Training in Sacramento on November 11-13, 2010 this time in our new office space. To learn more about this and my other upcoming trainings you can check out our Calendar page.

You can learn about the Addiction-Free Pain Management® System at our website www.addiction-free.com. If you are working with people undergoing chronic pain management and want to learn how to develop a plan for managing their chronic pain and coexisting psychological disorders; including depression, addiction and other coexisting psychological disorders effectively; please consider my book Managing Pain and Coexisting Disorders: Using the Addiction-Free Pain Management® System. To purchase this book please Click Here.

To read the latest issue of Chronic Pain Solutions Newsletter please click here. If you want to sign up for the newsletter, please click here and input your name and email address. You will then recieve an autoresponse email that you need to reply to in order to finalize enrollment.